I want to believe we could have a woman president so long as she ran on something other than being a wet noodle that's trying to be #relatable more than just being a good candidate.
Or better yet, running on something more than
"Are you really gonna let Trump win?"
It's funny, in 2015, I thought that that platform would be the only way a woman would be able to win over such a hard hurdle of all the conservative states with the electoral college we have.
The amount of people that looked past Donald Trump's flaws or embraced his hateful rhetoric, and blamed their decision on their dislike for Hillary was huge.
I didn't like her either. She wasn't my favorite candidate by a long shot, but I still can't believe our country is in a better place now than it would have been if she had won.
Also, it's hard to believe that was ten years ago. Gross.
Clinton stood no chance against Trump because of the large number of women voters that were never going to vote for her; not because of who she was in 2015 but because of her staying with Bill after he cheated on her.
Even the same ardent feminists that you would assume want to see a woman president more than anything still had little interest in her, in particular, being the first woman president. Too many women see her as a woman that stayed married to jackass just because of what it afforded her politically, financially, ect. Plus, they especially did not like the expectation placed on them to vote for her solely based on gender considering they viewed her as a traitor to women more broadly.
It says a lot about how hated she is by other women that a huge contingent of them voted for a serial sexual assailant rather than her
She wasn't my favorite candidate by a long shot, but I still can't believe our country is in a better place now than it would have been if she had won.
I do, because you have to remember: Trump wasn't a one-off anomaly; he was the manifestation of deep structural issues and multiple converging crises within American society. It was a balloon that was going to inflate and inflate until it eventually popped, and if it didn't pop in 2016 it would have even harder in 2020. Hell, I could think of an even worse scenario: Trump is sidelined in the American fascist movement and a fascist that actually knows what he's doing takes his place.
In 2015, I saw Trump as the key to causing more chaos than the establishment can handle. If Hillary won (maybe in that timeline, Trump was sunk by the RNC coronating Jeb Bush as nominee, and then Bush lost the general), the rich would only get stronger, and their rise would be much more subtle than it is now. In our world, Trump doesn't hide the massive corruption he and his rich buddies are doing. In Hillary's world, the more under-the-hood corruption of the 2000s and early 2010s would have continued without anyone trying to stop them.
This may come off as a stretch, but I claim that Mamdani (nor anyone like him) wouldn't have been able to become NYC mayor in Hillary's world. He wouldn't have the support, since people in Hillary's world are even bigger sheep than the ones in ours.
On the other hand, certain policies pre-2015 might have survived. I think Roe v Wade would still be with us in Hillary's world.
#relatable
Elizabeth Warren's "I think I'll have a beer" will live rent free in my head forever as the prime example of clumsy pandering.
If a woman performs a progressive Tea Party style takeover of the DNC, I can see her having a good shot at winning the general election.
This is exactly it
Well, so far the women we've run are 1) one of the most hated politicians of all time, and 2) a cop who repeatedly stated her support for genocide.
So... idk if 'women' is the issue here. Maybe we should try running one that doesn't come with decades of baggage / isn't an overtly horrible person?
I mean, sexism is definitely a factor, but one that has thus far only become insurmountable in combination with a mountain other barriers.
And yet everyone voted for a rich, racist, rapist, pedophile who can barely speak and also supports genocide anyway.
everyone voted for a
~30% of the adult population voted for said rapist
You need to add the people who couldn't be arsed opposing him.
Yeah no shit - for half of our voters, those things are all selling points. If we run a man who's an absolute piece of shit against a woman who's less so, but still very much a piece of shit, the man will win every time. As I said, sexism is definitely a factor.
If we run a man who's an absolute piece of shit against a woman who isn't a piece of shit... who fuckin knows: we haven't tried that. But Harris's odds seemed pretty solid until she started publicly supporting Israel's genocide on Gaza: so she lost a hefty chunk of support from the half of voters who are turned off by evil behavior; meanwhile the bigot's popularity with bigoted voters remained unsurprisingly steady.
My point is that the people who try to justify not voting for Harris due to her support of genocide achieved nothing.
Do you seriously think Trump gave less weapons to Israel? Do you think he did a better job of keeping a muzzle on Bibi?
They might think they didn't sully their soul, but they did. Refusing to choose the lesser of two evils isn't a moral win. It's just allowing the worse evil to win.
My point is that the people who try to justify not voting for Harris due to her support of genocide achieved nothing.
Well... K? You can keep getting mad about an overwhelming and likely irrelevant minority, but can you keep it for when it's actually relevant?
Also a majority of Americans are fucking straight up dumb and not engaged in politics or news at all. Last study I saw Americans average a 6th grade reading level. What this looks like in practice though is:
So until the Dems can also narrow and dumb down their messaging they won't gain ground. It's why when Walz called them weird it worked so well because everyone understands that.
So until the Dems can also narrow and dumb down their messaging they won't gain ground
That would require them to have a concrete program that can be stated plainly. Democrats don't do what you said not because they don't know how, but because it'd be pretty clear that their program offers nothing of substance to the working class.
I think you nailed it here. Give the people a choice to vote for AOC and I think it will happen.
They both lost to an obese rapist who can't form cohetebt sentences.
And both of them were so close that changing any one variable - such as having an actually likeable candidate - would've changed the outcome.
Ah, so the problem is the women weren't "likeable" enough, got it. I heard they were too bossy, too. And too aggressive. Yeah.
Are you trying to suggest that Hillary was the best possible candidate we could've chosen?
Holy mother of all strawmen what the heck are you talking about? Are you intentionally being disingenuous or do you not understand the meaning of the word "likeable" in this context?
Probably because the US is such a religious conservative country. Christianity (especially evangelical and more conservative type), patriarchy and authoritarianism go together, and that's who the great majority of his voters were.
Considering trump won twice against women but lost when he ran against a man, it seems the majority of voters would rather elect any man than any woman, even if that man is seriously flawed on every imaginable level. Only when both candidates were men were factors other than gender given more weight.
Given how incredibly well the harris campaign was doing at first and the outpouring of bi-partisan support for shooting CEOs dead in the street immediately after the election, and the barnstorming success of mamdani, i think it's safe the say harris lost because they took pelosi's advice and tacked hard to the right, instead of solidifying their early victories by continuing to lean left.
I think it's pretty clear the country was willing to vote for harris, dems just fucked it up.
The country is not ready for a president with intelligence, integrity, morals, empathy or even a bit of humanity.
It's pretty telling how easily liberals give up on their supposed ambitions even when the effort was obviously flawed.
Why is this a headline? The racist, misogynist, bigoted electorate that got us to where we are won't elect a woman? Maybe they're just unlikeable.
Sure, lady, explain that again when they want to put Ivanka in the Oval Office after her old man croaks.
Shut the fuck up Michelle, go to the dustbin of history with your husband and never show your face in public ever again please. You fucking know why Hillary and Harris lost and it was not because they were women.
She's perpetrating the bullshit that it's about race or gender. If that woman is continuing the exact same policies that old white men orchestrating she will lose. The public by and large is saying we are tired of old white rich men dictating our lives telling us that we are not struggling telling us that everything is fine when we can see in our day-to-day lives that is not true. People did not support Biden because people saw that Biden was a continuation of the same policies that gave us Trump the first time. And then Harris said that she would not have changed a single thing that occurred under Biden. She was a continuation of old white male policies. And any other woman that runs in the future on that same platform will lose regardless of gender regardless of race. Anyone mentioning race or gender is weaponizing race and gender as a political tool
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